1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,920 This NHPR episode 2007-1204 entitled, using a DIN rail to mount a Raspberry Pi. 2 00:00:06,920 --> 00:00:12,200 It is posted by name Moris and in about 9 minutes long, and Carina next visit flag. 3 00:00:12,200 --> 00:00:13,200 The server is. 4 00:00:13,200 --> 00:00:18,720 I created DIN rail fitting for attaching my RPI-3B plus and the SSD disc. 5 00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:23,160 This episode of HBR is brought to you by Anannas Toast.com. 6 00:00:23,160 --> 00:00:29,520 Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HBR-15. 7 00:00:29,520 --> 00:00:31,960 It's HBR-15. 8 00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:55,440 Get your web hosting that's AnastonFair at AnannasToast.com. 9 00:00:55,440 --> 00:01:19,560 Hello everybody, welcome to HAKA Public Radio, this is Dave Moris. 10 00:01:19,560 --> 00:01:29,400 Today I want to do a brief show about setting up a Raspberry Pi, I've got a Raspberry Pi 3B plus, 11 00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:35,080 which I want to use as a server, and I'm looking for a better way of setting it up, 12 00:01:35,080 --> 00:01:37,680 because I want to put an SSD on it. 13 00:01:37,680 --> 00:01:41,000 It would be quite nice to stack the one on top of the other in some sort of way, 14 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:46,760 but I came across the concept of using a DIN rail, DIN rail, 15 00:01:46,760 --> 00:01:50,600 and I thought I would see what could be done in that regard. 16 00:01:50,600 --> 00:01:54,760 So this is just talking about the investigations that I went through, 17 00:01:54,760 --> 00:01:59,320 and what I came up with is a bunch of photos in these notes and long notes, 18 00:01:59,320 --> 00:02:01,320 to give you some idea of what I'm talking about. 19 00:02:01,320 --> 00:02:08,360 So if you've never come across it, there's so-called DIN, a DIN, which is one of the European standards, 20 00:02:08,360 --> 00:02:15,240 do-it-shows industry, normal or something, but it's a standard for a particular type of rail. 21 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:17,560 I think there's maybe three different types. 22 00:02:17,560 --> 00:02:22,440 It's a metal rail, which you can fix to, to various surfaces or whatever. 23 00:02:22,440 --> 00:02:28,040 The idea for it is that you can mount usually bits of electrical equipment onto it, 24 00:02:28,040 --> 00:02:32,920 which you then put into an equipment rack, and use what I've purpose-so. 25 00:02:32,920 --> 00:02:38,520 You might find them in buildings controlling the power to the building or phone systems, I think, 26 00:02:38,520 --> 00:02:44,840 and you can see them in factories and that's how thing where a machine is controlled by equipment. 27 00:02:44,840 --> 00:02:50,120 Sitting on a DIN rail. You'll find, if you realize what they are, you'll see them everywhere. 28 00:02:50,120 --> 00:02:56,040 I certainly have. I think I've got some in my house, which are holding circuit records for my electrical 29 00:02:56,040 --> 00:03:01,400 system. Anyway, there's a Wikipedia article that talks a lot about it, and I've put a link to it 30 00:03:01,400 --> 00:03:07,320 in the notes. Now a number of people in the maker community have made use of these DIN rails, 31 00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:13,320 and there's a number of designs for stands that can be 3D printed. 32 00:03:13,320 --> 00:03:20,040 So that was the route I went to. There are also designs for mounts that you could put onto the rail, 33 00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:24,440 so you can hold a Raspberry Pi and disks and various other things. A lot of things you could fit 34 00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:29,240 onto a DIN rail. It's not hugely difficult to come up with your own designs, I think. 35 00:03:29,240 --> 00:03:34,520 Though I haven't done that. So I just wanted to tell you about making the bits to 36 00:03:34,520 --> 00:03:39,560 set up a DIN rail, put the Raspberry Pi and a disk on it, had the help of my son, 37 00:03:39,560 --> 00:03:44,920 and just go over and do both very heavily into the 3D printing stuff. I had it did a show 38 00:03:44,920 --> 00:03:52,120 a while ago about the 3D printer that I bought during 2018. So there are three different designs 39 00:03:52,120 --> 00:03:57,160 of DIN rail, but the commonest one that you mostly see is called the top hat design, 40 00:03:57,160 --> 00:04:01,960 because from side view it looks like it's got the shape of a hat. There's one with a depth of 41 00:04:01,960 --> 00:04:07,640 7.5 millimeters and the other is 15 millimeters. I think the one that's most commonly available is 42 00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:16,200 a 7.5 millimeter. And I went looking on eBay and Amazon and found them there, so I ordered a few 43 00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:22,200 short lengths. There's a couple of photos of what they look like in the notes. It's just a flat rail 44 00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:28,280 with raised edges that form a sort of a U shape when you look at it from the side. It's got mounting 45 00:04:28,280 --> 00:04:33,000 holes and this sort of stuff, just a metal rail. So I went looking for a stand for this, because the 46 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:39,160 idea was to stand the rail, put the rail between a couple of stands, possibly more. I don't know, 47 00:04:39,160 --> 00:04:46,120 but start off with a couple of stands and have it mounted on a surface table top shelf or something like 48 00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:52,520 that. The first design I came up with was a bit too fragile and unstable. It's one of these things 49 00:04:52,520 --> 00:04:57,640 not being an engineer myself. I couldn't quite visualize what it was going to be like when I saw 50 00:04:57,640 --> 00:05:02,840 the design. We printed a couple of them. It came off thinniverse and there's a link to it if you're 51 00:05:02,840 --> 00:05:08,840 interested. It's a triangular shape with the thin rail mounted. Well I just managed it on one side, 52 00:05:08,840 --> 00:05:14,600 but you can mount one on each side, which might be slightly better. But it still seems to be quite 53 00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:20,520 a thin design and not very rigid. And I'm not sure that if you did have two thin rails and put a 54 00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:25,320 fair amount of equipment on it, whether it would be up to holding it up. So it wasn't happy with 55 00:05:25,320 --> 00:05:30,520 it. There's a picture of what it looks like. Found a better design on the thinniverse again, 56 00:05:30,520 --> 00:05:37,560 and this had the drawback that it was designed for the 15mm top hat rail. We didn't appreciate this 57 00:05:37,560 --> 00:05:43,560 when we saw it and printed it. I say, I didn't appreciate it because I said how about this one 58 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:50,200 and the guy said, okay, we realized the mistake when the thing was printed and realized that it 59 00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:59,240 would not suit the 5mm rail. So the simple answer was to print a shim, which was just based on 60 00:05:59,240 --> 00:06:06,840 that geometry of the top of the stand with holes in it for mounting bolts and stuff. So put that 61 00:06:06,840 --> 00:06:18,280 in the gap between the 7.5mm depth of the rail and the back of the stand. And as picture of this 62 00:06:18,280 --> 00:06:24,200 showing the rail mounted on one of the stands, you can see the shim. The other thing we needed to do 63 00:06:24,200 --> 00:06:32,200 is to make mounting plates or mounting units for bits of equipment to put on to the rail. So we printed 64 00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:40,360 one for the Raspberry Pi 3B plus and another one for the SSD disc. It came from the source, 65 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:44,600 the first source. I've got links to these so I'm just calling them the first source and stuff. 66 00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:50,600 And the one that didn't produce very nice stands, the actual fittings for hanging onto the rail 67 00:06:50,600 --> 00:06:57,000 of great. The idea is that there's a hook at the top that goes over the top lip of the den rail 68 00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:04,200 and then the bottom of it is secured with a locking tab that he slide into to a slot and push it up 69 00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:12,520 and it's held by a friction. And image 9 in my list of images shows sort of back of you of how 70 00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:20,440 this looks together. But the mounting plate for the Raspberry Pi is just screwed through, 71 00:07:20,440 --> 00:07:26,840 it's just just a couple of arms which protrude out from the part that hooks over to the rail 72 00:07:26,840 --> 00:07:34,760 over the rail and it's got holds in it to allow bolts to be placed through to fix the Raspberry Pi. 73 00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:40,680 There's a couple of pictures here that show it in position. I have a bunch of nylon bolts 74 00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:46,920 which I've bought in the bus to use for fixing Raspberry Pi's to things and that's what I used 75 00:07:46,920 --> 00:07:52,120 a bit longer than they need to be but they do the job fine. The similar one for an SSD, 76 00:07:52,120 --> 00:07:59,000 I bought one of the low price SSDs of Amazon, only 120 gigabytes but that should be enough 77 00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:04,760 what I'm planning for. And you can see that it's a similar sort of idea. It's a slightly 78 00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:10,360 more elegant design actually. It's got some curves in it. You can get some idea from these pictures 79 00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:16,680 that we were still learning a way around this 3D printer. So the end result is not quite as pretty as 80 00:08:17,080 --> 00:08:23,560 perhaps we could do now. Getting these things set up is quite an exercise but it does the job great 81 00:08:23,560 --> 00:08:30,520 and I just happen to have a bunch of the connectors that will screw into the bolts that will screw 82 00:08:30,520 --> 00:08:38,760 into the tapped holes on the back of an SSD. Picture nine shows the locking tabs on the rail. 83 00:08:38,760 --> 00:08:45,560 So the final picture shows the rail on its stands. It's very nice and solid and stable. It's got 84 00:08:45,560 --> 00:08:51,240 equipment mounted on it. There's quite a lot of room for more. I think I get one or two more 85 00:08:51,240 --> 00:08:57,400 pies on there. I'm not sure how stable it will be with a lot of stuff on but it looks quite well 86 00:08:57,400 --> 00:09:03,400 balanced. So I think it will be fine. The setup I've got is the Raspberry Pi where the USB port 87 00:09:03,400 --> 00:09:11,240 are pointing upwards and the Ethernet connector. And next to it is the SSD which is connected with 88 00:09:11,240 --> 00:09:19,400 the USB to SATA connector. I've routed the power lead round the back of the rail for this particular 89 00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:25,080 one. It would be nice to do something better in terms of power distribution but that's for another 90 00:09:25,080 --> 00:09:31,640 day but this is going to be really good especially since I can get several pies on here if I want more 91 00:09:31,640 --> 00:09:37,880 and I do have several around the house that are doing various jobs. So you know things that 92 00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:43,960 think something like this for mounting them properly. There's plenty of ventilation around it. 93 00:09:43,960 --> 00:09:49,000 The only downside is going to be that if stuff gets dusty dust it's going to go into some of 94 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:54,840 these USB connectors and it's going to be all over the pie whereas when it's in a box it's less 95 00:09:54,840 --> 00:10:00,040 of an issue but I think this will be as it'll be pretty good anyway. I'm not sure I would put a 96 00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:06,520 spinning disk on this because it's not as rock solid as putting it straight onto a desk would be. 97 00:10:06,520 --> 00:10:11,640 The other thing I'm not sure about is whether I need to drill mounting holes in the bottom of the 98 00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:19,000 stand to fix it down to some surface but that's for the future. I hope you found that to be 99 00:10:19,000 --> 00:10:24,520 interesting and it might convince you to go in a similar direction. 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